Million-Dollar Facebook Video Ads Delayed

Published at 1:22 PM PDT on Jun 18, 2013

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Facebook's million-dollar video ads were supposed to be launched soon, but now the social network is shelving them until later this year.

Facebook is delaying the ads to add more features that will be launched "concurrently with video ads," according to AdAge. The decision is made by the higher-ups, but sales execs want the ads sooner than later, according to unnamed sources. Facebook declined to comment on the issue.

Video ads are lucrative, with advertisers spending more than $4 billion on video ads this year, and predicted to spend $5.7 billion in 2014, according to eMarketer. So Facebook pushing the ads back could mean a loss of revenue -- something not likely to be forgiven by Wall Street and shareholders.

Facebook's top price was $2.4 million for a video seen by all U.S. users, while $1 million for a specific demographic.

“From a business perspective, Facebook would want to roll out this type of advertising more quickly, but they have to weigh that against how their users feel,” said Debra Aho Williamson, principal analyst at eMarketer.

The ads can appear up to three times a day in a News Feed, but Facebook told an unnamed source that it would not start playing until a user clicked the 15-second ads.

While the ads certainly mean more money for the social network, it could easily lead to many annoyed users. Already News Feeds are crammed with top-heavy ads, so adding more seems a bit much so soon to adding ad photos. Perhaps that's the real reason that Facebook is waiting, because it doesn't want to create ad exhaustion when many of its younger users are expressing dissatisfaction.